Groups file suit to stop toll-road extension

Environmental groups filed suit Wednesday to block a planned extension of the 241 toll road, the latest maneuver in what has been more than seven years of legal battles over the road's future.

The agency that operates the toll road wants to add about 5.5 miles to its southern end and has pitched the project to South County communities as a way around the notorious congestion of I-5. But opponents say the agency has failed to adequately study the environmental impacts that such an extension will have, relying instead on outdated studies that were invalidated years ago.

They suspect that the 5.5-mile project is just the first segment in a much larger extension that would eventually connect the 241 to I-5 near the San Diego County line. They argued in their lawsuit that the toll-road agency needs to address the effects of that entire extension to I-5, not just the 5.5 miles now under discussion.

That full extension to I-5 was the original plan. It would have taken the road through San Onofre State Park and near the hallowed surf spot known as Trestles. Environmentalists and surfers mobilized by the hundreds to fight it. The California Coastal Commission rejected it in 2008 after several years of packed meetings and hearings.

Toll-road officials now say they are focused only on the 5.5-mile addition and have not determined how – or whether – to proceed past that. Spokeswoman Lori Olin said in a statement that the agency had not been served with the lawsuit and could not comment on it but had expected it.

The toll-road agency has not lined up the $200 million it expects the 5.5-mile extension to cost. It also is waiting on a water-quality permit that it needs before it can break ground.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court seeks an injunction to stop the project and a court order that would force toll-road operators to review its potential effects. The environmental groups behind it, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation, are part of a coalition that calls itself Save San Onofre.